


Untitled Elementary/Orphan Black Thing

by loudmouthgeek



Category: Elementary (TV), Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-27
Updated: 2013-06-27
Packaged: 2017-12-16 07:50:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/859698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loudmouthgeek/pseuds/loudmouthgeek
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Detective Art Bell can't make heads or tails of the pile of identical women who have all ended up on his desk, so he reaches out to his little cousin Marcus in New York City after having heard about this consultant who is supposed to be able to make connections that no one else sees.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Untitled Elementary/Orphan Black Thing

**Author's Note:**

> I honest to God have no idea if I'm going to continue this or not. It was something that someone on Tumblr posted and the idea took up residence in my brain.

The doorbell rings sharply and Sherlock looks around to find Watson enthralled in a Mets game. Her cap is pulled down low which means they're losing but not by much. She has a death grip on her glass so it's clearly a crucial situation in her estimation. This likely means they have the potential to score in the immediate future. She'll not be answering the door any time soon. Ms Hudson is upstairs working on his media room and she doesn't answer the door at any rate.

Short of other options, he pushes himself up from the parlor floor and makes his way to the door. Outside he finds Detective Bell with an arm load of files waiting for him. Opening the door he says, "Good evening, Detective, always good to see you. Do you have a case for me?"

"Not sure," he says, "It's not your usual thing, but I thought maybe I could ask a favor anyway."

"Of course," Holmes says, "Please come in." They make their back into the parlor. "WATSON! Please tear yourself away from the television. We've work and The Mets are going to lose beside."

"You don't have to call her away from the game," Bell says, "I don't even know if this will be anything you're interested in. It's just something my cousin Art asked for some help on."

"You always say The Mets are going to lose," Watson says, as she joins them.

"Only when there's a statistically high probability of them losing," Sherlock corrects, "Which, admittedly, with the Mets is often but rest assured Watson, when next they play the Miami Marlins I will be all too happy to predict victory for your beloved Mets. Until then, Detective Bell has need of our services." Holmes looks back to Bell and gestures, "Detective?"

"My cousin Art is a detective with Toronto PD," Bell says, "He's neck deep in this case. It's... unusual to say the least. It starts like this," he opens the first file and hands it over. "Detective Elizabeth Childs was Art's partner for three years until she jumped in front of a moving subway train. According to Art, Beth had been having some serious problems. There was a civilian shooting incident, relationship troubles."

"It says here," Watson says, "That she was heavily medicated. Actually some of these prescriptions are conflicting meds."

"So her suicide isn't all that surprising then," Holmes says, "I assume security cameras on the platform confirm that Detective Childs's death was indeed of her own doing?"

"Among other things," Bell says pulling photos out of a file folder. "That is Detective Childs on the platform just moments before she jumps. The reverse angle is where this starts getting strange." He pulls out another picture showing Elizabeth Childs facing the other way and the woman she's talking to facing towards the camera. They look exactly the same.

"Twin sister?" Joan asks.

"According to birth records and Beth's mother she doesn't have a twin sister or an identical cousin or any other family that bears even the slightest resemblance to her. Art ID'ed this woman as Sarah Manning, an orphan, originally from South London." He hands over another file.

"Drug charges, petty theft, credit card fraud," Holmes reads off, "Quite different than her doppelganger. I assume there's more since unrelated, identical women, one of whom is dead by her own hand probably wouldn't have made you cousin's desk, if not for being his partner, much less brought you here."

Bell pulls another picture, "Sarah Manning steals Detective Childs's purse and assumes her identity, starts showing up for work at the Toronto PD for reasons unknown. She pretends to be Beth Childs for a week and then quits suddenly. Meanwhile," Bell opens file number three and hands it over, "Felix Dawkins, Sarah Manning's foster brother, identifies Beth's body as Sarah's. Whether this was intentional or not is unknown. He's refusing to speak to the police."

"Not unusual for foster children," Holmes says.

"Especially not for someone with a record like this," Watson adds, "I don't think I've ever seen anyone suspected of so many things without ever having been arrested for any of them."

"So impersonating a police officer and possibly faking her own death," Holmes sums up, "Does this get interesting soon?"

"It's about to," Bell says as he opens another file, "Meet Alison Hendrix." Holmes's mouth begins to creep into a smile as, like promised, things were now getting interesting. Alison also looks just like Beth and Sarah. "Alison is a known associate of Sarah Manning's. We don't know what their connection is aside from looking just alike, but eyewitnesses in Alison’s neighborhood have seen them together. They all assumed that she's Alison's sister, but again according the mother Alison doesn't have a sister."

"Intriguing," Holmes says.

"Yeah, well, hold on cause we ain't done yet," Bell says. He pulls out a police sketch and hands it over. "This came in on a completely unrelated assault case where a witness gave this description, matching the others except she has long blonde hair and speaks in a Russian accent. Now if that weren't enough, meet Jane Doe," Bell opens and hands over his final file, bearing a computer generated image of a face that looks just like all the others. "Her body was dumped and heavily damaged, found only a few days after Detective Childs killed herself, though they didn't know that at the time. The skull was crushed but reconstruction says a bullet in the head is what killed her, large caliber rifle from a long distance most likely."

Sherlock sits perfectly still, just staring at the pile of evidence in front of him as Watson flips through parts of it. He wasn't sure where this story was going be he's certain that it wasn't here. "Absolutely fascinating," he says after a few moments.

"So I take it you have a theory?" Bell asks.

"Until I can read this in more depth," Holmes replies, "All I have are hypotheses, and I'd rather not mention them until I have time to sift through all of this. I assume you don't mind leaving your files with us for the night. We'll get right into it."

Bell shakes his head and Watson stands immediately, "I'm going to go start the coffee."

"I've got it," says Ms Hudson, drawing everyone's attention.

"Ah, thank you," Sherlock says, "Detective Bell, this is Ms Hudson, my friend and sometimes housekeeper. Ms Hudson, this is Detective Marcus Bell, NYPD."

"Nice to meet you," Ms Hudson says.

"Likewise," Det. Bell says standing to shake her hand. "I'll get out of your way. Let you do your thing. Call me if you come up with anything."

"I'll see you out," Ms Hudson says.

As soon as she hears the door shut, Joan looks at Sherlock and asks, "So what's your hypothesis?"

"Without more evidence, you won't believe me," Holmes says as he turns pages in one of the files.

"So I won't believe you and then you'll spend all night reading this pile of information and prove one of us right," Watson counters, “Tell me.”

"Five women, all with more or less identical facial features, eye color, natural hair color, height, build, et cetera. Elizabeth, Sarah, and Alison were all born within two weeks of one another. All apparently unrelated. Two Canadian, one English, one Russian, and one of unknown nationality."

"Right," Watson says.

"Human cloning," Holmes says simply, turning another page.

"No," Watson says, "Not possible."

"I told you that you wouldn't believe me," Holmes reminds her.

"No," Watson counters, "It’s not a matter of not believing you. It isn’t _possible_ for these women to be clones. They're all in their late twenties. If we were looking for a batch of newborns or even five year olds then I'd concede that it's possible if unlikely, but for people pushing thirty, then someone would have had to have cloned them in..."

"1983, yes," Holmes interjects, "This morning I'd have agreed with you, Watson, but in light of new data I'm forced to re-evaluate my stance and say that not only could it happen but that it did, at least five times to my reckoning."

"Okay, but..." Watson starts and stops, then shakes her head.

"There are many millions of variables within the human genome, are there not?" Holmes asks.

"Of course," Watson says.

"So what would be the statistical probability of two non-related identical people existing?"

"I don't know."

"Nor do I off the top of my head but it's bound to be rather immense," Holmes says, "And yet it does happen. People make entire careers out of looking astoundingly like celebrities, which is why I was rather uninterested at the start. However, as the number duplicates grew, so did my interest, since the probability compounds exponentially as you add each new duplicate. If there's a one-in-ten million chance of two non-related identicals, then there a one-in-one hundred quadrillion chance of there being three, a one-in-ten octillion chance of four, and a one-in-one hundred septendecillion chance of there being five. If there's more than five, I'm quite certain I don't even know the word for ten-to-the-one-hundred-and-sixteenth-power, if anyone's even bothered to make up such a word, and that's just the odds of them existing all at the same time, never mind those of being born only a matter of weeks apart or of them actually meeting."

"You're saying that it's mathematically impossible for this to all be a fluke occurrence," Watson says.

"And when you eliminate the impossible, Watson..."

"...whatever remains," says Ms Hudson entering the room carrying a trio of coffee cups, "no matter how improbable, must be the truth."

"Okay," Watson says, "So why not tell this to Bell?"

"Firstly, because it's all still speculation," Holmes says, "Speculation with the weight of logic and statistics but speculation none the less, the Detectives Bell need evidence. Also the understanding of their nature doesn't answer the questions that the elder Detective Bell will undoubtedly have: Who is Jane Doe? Who killed her? Who is the blonde woman? And, I suspect, did any of this have anything to do with Elizabeth Childs's death?"

"You think it wasn't a suicide?"

"Though I would prefer to see the video with my own eyes, I will for the moment grant Art Bell the benefit of the doubt and assume he is competent enough a detective to see if someone had pushed her, at least physically."

"What do you mean physically?" Watson says, "You think someone pushed her psychically."

"Now you're being ridiculous, Watson," Holmes says.

"Hey, you've spent the last ten minutes talking about clones," Watson says, "How do I know telekinesis isn't the next thing out of your mouth?"

Sherlock scoffs and continues, "I was speaking more about coercion. You said that Detective Childs was on a host of medications, some of them conflicting. It is therefore a possibility that these conflicting medications altered her mental status and left her susceptible to suggestion and someone said or did something that caused her to want to die. It's a hypothesis that I intend to follow up on, as that would alter the landscape of our investigation considerably."

"Because then Elizabeth Childs and Jane Doe's deaths could be connected and this would have the potential to be part of a string of killings," Watson says, "Which would make Alison, Sarah, and the blonde potential targets as well."

"Very good, Watson," Holmes says, "Also the final reason that I did not relay any of this to Detective Bell is that I had a high estimation that he would object to us from going to Toronto in investigate."

"We're going to Toronto?" Watson asks, "Why?"

"Why would we not?" Holmes asks in reply. "Reason number one, a woman has been killed, possibly a second. Investigating murders is what we do. Reason number two, Toronto, I've heard nothing but good things about it, a lovely city by all accounts. Always wanted to see it, never been. Reason number three and I cannot stress this one enough, HUMAN CLONES, WATSON! You cannot honestly say that you, a scientist by trade, are not interested to meet them."

Joan looks at him and says, “I’m not driving.”

“Well, I’m not driving,” Sherlock says, “I’ve too much reading to do.”

“I’ll drive,” Ms Hudson says and they both look at her inquisitively, “Like you said, Sherlock, human clones. I’m not going to miss that.”

 


End file.
